This Thursday, the 23 countries of the oil cartel OPEC plus want to discuss their future production policy - and thus the question of whether the oil tap will be turned on for the world.

So far, the oil countries have shown themselves bulky and do not want to go beyond their slow monthly increase in oil production of 400,000 barrels a day.

And that, although the industrialized countries are now even threatening them: Not only America's President Joe Biden has signaled that if the oil-producing countries do not help fight high energy prices and thus inflation by producing more oil, politics could also tap into the national emergency reserves of oil - and flood the market with it.

Christian Siedenbiedel

Editor in business.

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The world is clearly in a dilemma. On the one hand, the G20 summit in Rome and the climate conference in Glasgow will discuss how energy can be made more expensive for reasons of climate protection, for example through CO2 certificates. On the other hand, more and more politicians are concerned about how energy could be made cheaper for reasons of consumer protection. The proposal of the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) to lower the value added tax on petrol is just one of many.

After all, heating and refueling will become more and more expensive. The price of diesel hit a new historic high in October at an average of 1.537 euros per liter, and Super E10 is not far from his at 1.686 euros. At the same time, the price of heating oil has more than doubled within twelve months, to 89 euros per 100 liters. And for natural gas, the import price of which has risen by an impressive 170.6 percent during the period, the first suppliers in Germany are starting to double consumer prices - not a good outlook for winter.

Now you could say that expensive energy is the price for climate protection. When the price of oil rises, people consume less and think about more ways to save energy or produce less oil. At least that was a lesson from the oil crisis of the 1970s.

However, a high oil price is also an incentive for oil states and oil companies to invest more in oil production. You can currently feel that a lot of money has gone into digitization in recent years and less into the mining of fossil energies, which is considered dirty and the day before yesterday, says Jeff Currie, oil expert at the investment bank Goldman Sachs. Also the pressure from shareholders of the oil companies, less Investing in fossil energy plays a role in this, says oil analyst Giovanni Staunovo of UBS bank. Currie calls the current rise in energy prices the "revenge of the old economy".

If the price of oil stays above $ 80 or climbs to $ 90 by the end of the year, as Goldman Sachs expects in its latest research report, the incentives could be reversed.

More money should flow into oil production again, even locations with higher costs will become attractive again - and the fracking companies in America, which are not exactly famous for their environmental friendliness, should expand their production.

On the supply side, the high oil price does not lead to more climate protection - but to less.